Sex in the city (of Athens): Streetwalkers on the move (video)

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Hookers and transvestites would line up along the southbound sidestreet parallel to Syngrou Boulevard on the backstreets behind the National Theater a stone’s throw from the increasingly gruff Omonia square district. They’d enter vehicles ranging from luxury sedans to work vans and guide “johns” on joy rides. Then, suddenly the lively nighttime streets around the Panteio School off Syngrou began to empty.

Shops shut down, and unemployment caused men looking for paid sex to diminish. Then there was …HIV.

Pimps and prostitutes left these traditional street-walking routes for greener pastures. But where did they go?

Galatsi

Some girls from downtown moved to the Galatsi distric, a mostly nondescript municipality in north central Athens. At first they lined up off Patission Avenue, southwest of Galatsi, and with time sex workers moved northward. These days it is possible to find paid sex even on Galatsiou Street.

Nea Erythrea and northern suburbs

Some street sex professionals decided to go where the money is and tried taking a few girls to the leafier northern suburbs. Their business sense paid off as men with fuller wallets responded to the girls’ calls from Kifissias Avenue and Nea Erythrea where the sex trade is reportedly brisk.

Southern suburbs

Strangely enough, the “butterflies” plying their trade on Poseidonos Avenue, in coastal Glyfada, don’t appear to have protection. Nor do the girls at Faliro Delta site and Paleo Faliro near the Anglican cemetery.

For alternative tastes

Syngrou Avenue, known for its “street market” of transvestites and transsexuals, has now moved to Kavalas Avenue in grittier west Athens, where feathered trans-gendered streetwalkers hustle and haggle with clients. Strangely enough, police are markedly absent from the commotion.